Questions and answers to student card questions

If your student card does not work, please check that:

1. You have paid AYY’s membership fee and a receipt for the payment has been sent to Aalto study office.
2. Aalto study office has updated your payment information to the Sisu system.
3. If you have a Finnish social security number, it has been added to the Sisu system. 
   
   Frank’s database will not recognise you if you try to log in to Frank with your last name and social security number if your social security number has not been added to Sisu. In this case, you can try to log in to Frank without a Finnish social security number and ask Aalto study office to update your social security number to Sisu.

Contact Aalto

Yes. To use your student card, you must be a member of the Student Union and enrol for attendance for the academic term. Exchange students and doctoral students must also pay the membership fee if they want to get a student card.

Membership fee payment instructions

Aalto has had some problems with data transfer to JOLLA register, where Frank collects students' enrolment information. However, the expiration date should be automatically and correctly updated. You do not have to do anything.

The digital student card will expire on the day of your graduation, but with the plastic card you can take advantage of the benefits until the expiration date on the academic year tag.

Yes. You can still use the card as a student card, even if the card no longer works as a payment card.

You can order a plastic student card to your home via Frank https://www.frank.fi/.
The card will be delivered within a few weeks.

Yes. The year tag can be picked up within the opening hours of AYY’s Services Office. You must have a student card with you when picking up the year tag, as we can only add the year tag directly to the card.

If you wish, you can also send the card by mail, in which case we will send it back to you with a new year tag. Please remember to include a return envelope with a  stamp and your address.

AYY’s Services Office cannot give you a year tag for a card issued by another student union, even if you are currently studying at Aalto. You can only get a year tag from the student union which has issued the student card for you.
 
AYY’s Services Office only gives a year tag to AYY’s student card for members who have paid AYY’s membership fee. Student cards previously issued by the former Student Union of the Helsinki School of Economics (KY), Student Union of the University of Art and Design Helsinki (TOKYO) and the Student Union of Helsinki University of Technology (TKY) are also regarded as AYY’s student cards.

The differences are related to the verification of student status: Frank verifies student status through AYY’s member register, whereas Pivo verifies the status through the Studyinfo and requires a Finnish social security number.

Therefore, you cannot use Pivo if you do not have a Finnish social security number, but if you have, you may be able to use Pivo even if all of your information has not been updated to Sisu yet.

Pivo student card is only digital, while you can still buy a plastic card from Frank. With both student cards, you get discounts on VR’s train journeys and receive Kela’s meal subsidy in student restaurants, for example.

In practice, the features of both cards are the same. The digital card is free (without an ISIC license) but the plastic student card costs about EUR 26. The most significant difference is related to graduation: the digital card stops working on the day of graduation. With a plastic card with a valid year tag, you can take advantage of the benefits until the end of the term you have paid for.

If you have the Frank app, you can get an ISIC student ID for your card for €4 a year. Further information on Frank's website.
 
You can also get a separate ISIC card.
More information about ISIC’s own cards can be found on ISIC website.

As a doctoral student, you can become a member of AYY by paying the membership fee of doctoral students. You can make the payment either when enrolling for the academic year or by bank transfer in the middle of the academic term. You can find payment instructions on our website.

Please note that a doctoral student’s benefits differ from the benefits of bachelor’s and master’s students.